Chapter 326: The Anomaly
Mirror Jace pulled himself up and looked at the liquid mirror anomaly. "I am conscious now, you can continue with your explanation." He informed her as a number of his other soldiers began pulling themselves up.
"This thing is some type of portal or passageway between two different realities. Your reality and my reality." Salem began explaining. "I assume the people you are hunting are the bandits and my counterpart who are back in my reality. They went through and grabbed a person I was tracking down. Now they are keeping him prisoner and terrorizing a nearby town." Salem explained as she looked over them.
"So basically we need to go through there to get our fugitives?" Mirror Jace asked as he seemed to be taking everything in stride. He looked at the rest of his men, "we will wait a few more minutes and then we will go in." He decided, "what type of resistance should we expect?"
"A mountainside hideout with a complex structure. They will not be able to run too far. The farther you get from the portal the more insane you get. Apparently it acts as a stabilizer for your own grasp on reality when you are in another reality." Salem explained as she pulled out her communication device. It was connecting to something but it was getting an error message as well.
This reality was similar enough to her own. But it was also completely different. "So if we come from different realities does that mean there is something different." Mirror Jace asked as he moved around checking on his soldiers. Her version would not be going around doing stuff like that, it was curious to see.
"Probably but it does not really matter. We just need to keep our two realities separated. If not yours would probably end up on the losing side." Salem informed them with a chuckle, getting a few glares from the soldiers.
"What makes you so sure of that?" Another soldier asked as he pulled himself up.
"Because I am a telepath and mind reader. I took a peak into your mind earlier. The weapons and equipment you have are a lot less capable. A lot of what you use is something my reality has labeled as flawed and unusable." Salem explained as she moved around the room, taking pictures of any writing or drawings she found, of which there were a few. They would be useful for later in case there were more.
She also had to start thinking about how to destroy the portal. But first she would need to check on her people. Her original plan was to quietly extract the Xenoarcheologist while the others were distracted with her teammates. But instead she was tossed through the portal where she expects her counterparts to have been. But Salem had seen in the soldiers recent memories that they had already grabbed a bunch of the fugitives that were waiting over here.
Hopefully nothing had happened to her-
She stopped mid thought as she saw a person walk through the liquid surface that rippled as they moved through it. "Hey guys, the boss lady says to stop-" The bandit stopped just outside of the portal mid-sentence when he noticed the soldiers. He quickly turned like he was going to run as the soldiers prepared to give chase.
But then the bandit just flew backwards through the air. Skidding across the sandy floor as he flailed his arms and was completely thrown off balance. Salem had pulled him back and into the arms of a pair of soldiers who were prepared to give chase. But now they were pushing him into the ground. "What was that?" One of the soldiers asked in confusion.
"Telekinesis." Mirror Jace nodded at Salem. "I am guessing that is another of her tricks. We have some that can do the same in our reality as well. But they are rare and usually drafted to be speciality guards." Mirror Jace explained to them but his mind wandered in a different direction. What they actually did was far more cruel.
Apparently they took them as children. Usually faking their deaths if they had a family. Then they would undergo extensive brainwashing to make them loyal to a high ranking political figure. Then they would undergo enhancements and training until they were sixteen. Then they are deployed. But the training consisted of both physical and mental while the end of their training consisted of them learning how to please both men and women if it is requested of them.
Honestly, it disgusted her but she had enough to worry about in her own reality. She was sure this one would work itself out. Not because of anything she knew but she could already see doubts in Mirror Jace’s mind. Like he was aware of what was going on but was not okay with it. He just needed that one last push from someone and the supposed ’hero’ of the Faction. Who was the ruling body in this reality, would turn against the faction.
"Are you ready enough to go? There are probably a bunch on the other side and they are expecting this one back soon." Salem pointed out after doing a quick browse of the bandit’s mind. Confirming her worry about her squad who had been captured. Fortunately they had not gone back to the village to terrorize it again. But they were planning to raid Vanityville in the morning.
"As ready as we could be. Is there anything we should know?" Mirror Jace asked as he walked up to the liquid mirror.
"Yeah, they captured two of my team members and there is a third scientist they are holding. Please do not shoot them. If you do, I will be upset." Salem explained as moved to the liquid mirror with her stolen rifle ready. The soldiers were a lot less likely to shoot her now. Especially after one of their fugitives came through the mirror portal anomaly.
She moved through it and ended up in that dark space for a moment as she walked. She saw it last time for only a brief moment but this time she could see the mist at the edge and that there were two mirrors, the one in front of her and the one behind her. She ran forward and jumped through the mirror in front of her.